"Powering Implantable Devices with the Body’s Own Chemistry"
Speaker: Shelley Minteer, PhD
Professor, Department of Chemistry
Director, Kummer Institute Center for Resource Sustainability
Director of NSF Center for Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Date: July 21, 2026, noon-1 p.m.
Location:
The Forum Room, Innovation Lab building
650 Tim Bradley Way, Rolla, MO 65401
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Description
“Anything you can think of as food, I can think of as fuel.”
Imagine a medical device so small it can fit inside a human tear duct or directly onto a contact lens, operating continuously without ever needing a battery replacement or a recharge. Dr. Shelley Minteer, a bioelectrochemist and professor of Chemistry at Missouri S&T, is making this a reality by exploring the interface of biocatalysts and electrodes. Her group’s interests include self-powered sensing, implantable devices, and wearable electronics, addressing one of the great logistical challenges in medical tech: battery size. Traditional battery designs can’t easily be scaled down or efficiently recharged inside the human body, so Dr. Minteer’s team harvests energy directly from everyday biological “fuels” to create self-contained, self-powered systems.
These advanced devices could rely on common compounds - sugars, carbohydrates, proteins or lipids - to generate power. For implantable devices, a large, continuous supply of glucose running through the bloodstream offers a reliable power source perfect for diabetic monitoring and targeted drug delivery systems. For wearable and point-of-care electronics, lactate found in sweat and tears might serve as fuel. Minteer's group has previously developed lactate energy-harvesting smart contact lenses.
Now, they are working to scale down this technology into a microscopic plug for the tear duct, enabling continuous biomarker detection for ophthalmological diseases. This project and others involve interdisciplinary collaborations spanning 16 institutions across the country – including Harvard Medical School, Columbia University and MIT – to integrate biomedical, electrical engineering, and material science expertise.
Those projects have gone on to reveal broader applications for sustainable energy management. Today, Minteer also directs the NSF Center for Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry, where her work now involves "electrifying the pharmaceutical industry.” It’s an effort to make pharmaceutical manufacturing cleaner, safer, and more sustainable.
Traditional drug manufacturing relies on massive energy inputs and uses toxic chemical oxidizing and reducing agents, creating hazardous waste and safety concerns for employees and surrounding communities. By replacing these chemical agents with clean electricity, Minteer's technology offers a significantly greener method for manufacturing vital medications.
This electrochemical approach also vastly improves chemical selectivity. In the pharmaceutical industry, even microscopic impurities are a deal breaker. Minteer’s team works directly with industrial partners to ensure that life-saving pharmaceuticals can be safely manufactured 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
About the Speaker
Dr. Shelley Minteer is a Professor of Chemistry and the Director of the Kummer Institute Center for Resource Sustainability at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She is also the Director of the NSF Center for Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry. She received her PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Iowa in 2000 under the direction of Professor Johna Leddy. After receiving her PhD, she spent 11 years as a faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Saint Louis University before moving to the University of Utah in 2011 to lead the USTAR Alternative Energy Cluster. She was a Technical Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society (2013-2016) and also an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society (2016-2020) before becoming the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the ACS Au Journals. She has published greater than 450 publications and greater than 550 presentations at national and international conferences and universities. She has won several awards including the Luigi Galvani Prize of the Bioelectrochemical Society, International Society of Electrochemistry Tajima Prize and Bioelectrochemistry Prize, Grahame Award of the Electrochemical Society, Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and the International Society of Electrochemistry, American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Electrochemistry, and the Society of Electroanalytical Chemists’ Young Investigator Award and Reilley Award. Her research interests are focused on electrocatalysis and bioanalytical electrochemistry. She has expertise in biosensors, biofuel cells, electrosynthesis, and bioelectronics.
About the Discovery Series
The NextGen Precision Health Discovery Series provides learning opportunities for UM System faculty and staff across disciplines, the statewide community and our other partners to learn about the scope of precision health research and identify potential collaborative opportunities. The series consists of monthly lectures geared toward a broad multidisciplinary audience so all can participate and appreciate the spectrum of precision health efforts.
For questions about this event or any others in the Discovery Series, please reach out to Mackenzie Lynch.